Ｓｈｏｕｌｄ Ｅｌｉｔｅ Ｕｎｉｖｅｒｓｉｔｉｅｓ Ｏｎｌｙ Ｂｅ Ｏｐｅｎ ｔｏ ｔｈｅ Ｗｅａｌｔｈｙ？

Attending a prestigious university is the dream of almost every young person. But for children from poor families in China, it remains only a dream, because the annual tuition can be several times the family income.

Since China started its economic reform in the late 1970s, the country has gone through the transformation from a planned economy to a market economy. In the process, the education sector has also experienced several rounds of reforms, with the reform of higher education drawing enormous attention from the entire society. The reason is that, for the majority of the disadvantaged population, going to college, especially to a prestigious university, is an important turn of life. Entry into a good university means a splendid future, including a good job and a handsome income.

However, higher education is plagued by problems like expensive tuition, random extra fees, insufficient government investment and unemployment after graduation due to expanding enrollment, which have fueled peoples complaints about the current situation.

According to official statistics, tuition, which was nonexistent for a long time after the founding of the Peoples Republic of China in 1949, has increased to 5,000 yuan last year from 200 yuan 20 years ago, a 25-fold increase. The growth rate of college tuition has been much higher than that of the residents income over the same period. The total expenses for a four-year undergraduate education, including tuition, boarding fees and food, average over 40,000 yuan per person, while the per-capita income of Chinese farmers in 2005 was 2,936 yuan. The contrast means that a university students four-year expenses are equivalent to a farmers 13 years of income.

According to a survey on the quality of life of city and rural residents conducted in 2005 by the Horizon Research Consultancy Group, educational expenses are respectively 32.6 percent and 25.9 percent of a rural and urban familys income. The education expenditure per college student is about 14,000 yuan, of which students have to pay 44 percent. In contrast, the proportion of self-financing usually stands at 15 percent overseas.

In response to these problems, Ministry of Education Spokesman Wang Xuming argued that the Chinese people should change their mindset over the tuition issue. In the era of a planned economy, the government paid all tuition costs from elementary school to college. But the situation has dramatically changed now.

Except for the nine-year compulsory education phase-six years in primary school and three years in junior middle school-education has become a form of consumption. And like any other consumption item, educational consumption should depend on ones economic capability and intelligence. Excellent educational resources, such as Peking University and Tsinghua University, which are the most prestigious in China, are scarce and should be priced at a higher level.

It is natural that not everyone can afford excellent educational resources. It is like shopping for clothing. A well-off man can go to a brand-name store to buy a 10,000-yuan suit, while a poor person can buy a 100-yuan suit from a vendor. Wang said it is irrational for parents to push their children to go to prestigious universities without considering the families financial capability, adding that it is parents with such a mindset who complain that tuition costs are too high.

Wangs comments have triggered a wide and fierce debate in society. People are questioning whether higher education should be similar to buying clothing, whether children from poorer families should deny themselves the dream of going to a prestigious university, and whether attending a prestigious university is a luxury reserved only for children from rich families.

Everyone is entitled to attend a good university

Zhou Zhinan (freelance writer): The spokesman for the Ministry of Education has made his logic quite clear. Overpriced college tuition is a non-issue that has been raised by some “irrational” people. Wang also declared that institutions of higher education like Tsinghua University and Peking University are not designed for the populace, and that high-quality education should be enjoyed only by the rich elites. However, I still have a few questions for the spokesman.

First, who paid for the foundation and development of Peking University and Tsinghua University? Why did these two universities, rather than other schools, become first-rate institutions? Under the situation of limited education investment from the government, China chose a development path of education featuring the priority of higher education rather than primary education. Those universities have received the majority of the investment in higher education. But the investment is money from all taxpayers. That means the scarce, high-quality educational resources should belong to all people, rather than be the privilege of the rich few.

Second, what is the standard of talent in our society, wealth or intelligence? Since ancient times in China, intelligence and capacity have been regarded as the only criteria, being the fairest ones, for selecting talent. Therefore, we wonder whether todays wealth standard is a victory of the market economy or the degradation of the consciousness of fairness.

Based on the criterion of wealth, rich people are bound to monopolize top-rate educational resources, while the poor would be deprived of the opportunity to change their fate through education. Thus the resultant widening of the rich-poor gap would make inroads into social harmony. On the other hand, would Tsinghua University and Peking University be the same under the monopoly of rich people?

Third, the spokesman has disseminated a concept of regarding education as consumption, which resounds with a similar theory of making education an industry, which the Ministry of Education claimed to oppose. Comparing an education to buying a suit for 100 yuan or 10,000 yuan or renting an apartment compared to buying a villa does not hold water. While real estate developers are entitled to pursue the maximum profits, the government should bear the interests of all citizens in mind, and a mercantilist approach is inappropriate here.

Wen Junyi (a deputy to the National Peoples Congress): Many factors contribute to the phenomenon of inflated tuition charges, which cannot be addressed overnight. However, a pro-market approach, as in shopping for clothing, is not correct. Non-compulsory education should embody the principles of fairness and affordability. People should never lose the opportunity to receive an education because of economic difficulties.

Lao Kaisheng (professor at the School of Education of Beijing Normal University): However much the economic threshold of higher education is lowered, there will be a segment of the population that cannot afford it. Now we are starting to implement a homogeneous tuition system, which is designed to prevent schools charging extra fees.

As far as I know, the Beijing Municipal Government has stipulated that the total fees charged an elementary school student should be under 600 yuan a year. This amount of money, while nominal for the majority of Beijing families-some families could afford to pay 10 times or 100 times that amount for a higher quality education-could still exert a financial strain on some families.

We call education a market only conditionally. In other markets, the consumption desire is always linked to consumption capacity. For example, only people who can afford a car go to an auto dealer. But it is a different and more complicated case for education.

China has a student population of 230 million, whose consumption capacities vary dramatically. Therefore, a social assistance system for the disadvantaged population should be in place. Young and talented people who cannot afford tuition due to their families financial difficulties should be financed by the state. I think it is the key to solving this problem.

Higher education is no free lunch

Zhi Bai (contributor to Foshan Daily): I believe the Ministry of Education has made some original and reasonable points. First of all, he points out the confusion between government-funded compulsory education and non-compulsory education in the complaints about expensive tuition. I think it is important to make the clarification. Education at the two stages has different goals, thus different ways of providing and distributing resources.

Compulsory education is designed to guarantee citizens literacy and it is natural that the government should be responsible for providing resources, which the Chinese Government is making great efforts to improve. But should the government deal with non-compulsory education in the same way? Aside from the theoretical counter- argument, in practice no market economy country in the world fully supplies resources for higher education. Chinas one-time practice of having the government cover all expenses is a product of the planned economy.

Since it is impossible and unreasonable for the government to fully support higher education, the supply of resources in practice must be decided by the market. Meanwhile, allocation of resources must be realized through trade. From this perspective, I think he makes a good case in regarding higher education as personal consumption.

Some people attack the problem of expensive tuition based on the fact that college tuition rose 25-fold in the last 20 years from 200 yuan to 5,000 yuan, higher than the growth rate of residents income. This argument ignores the question of whether it was reasonable to charge only 200 yuan. Other people think college tuition has exceeded the capacity of ordinary families to afford it. Here the problem is whether the price of market-allocated higher education resources should be measured against the affordability level of consumers.

After all, higher education is far from a necessary consumption for all citizens. As a matter of fact, Chinas social and economic development is not advanced enough to provide higher education for the whole population. In view of this, I think the reform of universities should continue to stick to the direction of using the market as the major means to collect and allocate the majority of higher education resources, even if tuition is higher than the level low-income families can afford.

Of course, the government, society and universities themselves should not overlook excellent students from poor families. Meanwhile, we should consider setting up an assistance system for them rather than blaming “high” tuition. If tuition is generally kept at a low level, it may harm the supply of resources for universities and colleges in the long run and eventually restrain the overall development of Chinas higher education.

Bei Hai (Beijing resident): I think Wang Xumings argument is understandable. Now, the dominant consumption mindset in society is too floating and impractical. This irrational attitude explains paying high tuition as much as buying unaffordable apartments. As a result, so many people are living on loans. Maybe we should advocate a simple lifestyle in society by boosting peoples self-satisfaction with life. Let people know that their consumption should be based on how much they can earn. I think in this way our society will have fewer tragedies of people committing suicide because they are unable to go to university or paying tuition by selling blood.